The move from the Garden to “the world” is a fundamental change in mankind. In the Garden, man was in communion with God, endowed with original justice and innocence. In the world, all of this is gone. What does this mean?
It means that, through no fault – no sin – of our own, we are born injured and estranged from God because we are all born “in the world” and not “in the Garden”. Adam’s transgression is the curse of all mankind – that all mankind should suffer the separation he willfully placed between him and God. This is what is meant when it is said we are born into Original Sin.
Augustine writes in On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants (Book III)
As, therefore, by the answer of those, through whose agency they are born again, the Spirit of righteousness transfers to them that faith which, of their own will, they could not yet have; so the sinful flesh of those, through whose agency they are born, transfers to them that injury, which they have not yet contracted in their own life. And even as the Spirit of life regenerates them in Christ as believers, so also the body of death had generated them in Adam as sinners.
We all understand Adam’s sin – it’s something he willfully did. He is at fault. Under Original Sin, the Roman Catholic Church and Augustine both teach, we inherit the injury of Adam’s sin, but we are not held as properly responsible for Adam’s sin. It’s kind of like Adam willfully giving himself a black-eye and breaking a leg when God told him not to, and now, because of Adam’s choice, we’re all born with black-eyes and broken legs. It’s not our fault that we have a black-eye and broken leg – we didn’t punch our eye and strike our leg – but here we are all the same.
The fact that we are injured is important because, using the above analogy, with a black-eye and a broken leg, we’re not going to be able to see well and we’re not going to be able to walk right. As a matter of fact, if we think we can see perfectly well and walk perfectly right, then odds are we’re just going to make the situation a whole lot worse, resulting in a misery and suffering life. Same goes it with our moral life. We are born morally injured – separated from God – and so cannot live perfectly morally well until we are healed.
Original Sin does not say that our ability to see, to walk, to behave morally is totally gone or absolutely ruined. Original Sin only says that we are flawed which leaves room and has been interpretted to mean that mankind can by his own will get things right while getting other things wrong. People can see both in others and in themselves that they are injured, and so they can adjust for that. To use our analogy, if I know my leg is broken, then I can stay off of it … or use it such that I will not cause myself more harm. Likewise, we all know our personality faults … we can exercise our will to avoid invoking those flaws or situations that would encourage such bad behavior. This is moral living … a poor moral living, yet a moral living all the same.
God can and does see good works by fallen man for what they are and reckons them as such, but these good things don’t restore communion – that takes an act of God, that takes grace. Furthermore, God does not want people hobbling on one good leg all their life, avoiding the further injury of the second. God wants man walking on two good legs, and He offers to heal our injuries, to tend to our wounds.
It is for this reason, this desire and plan of God, that people can live a moral life and still be condemned to hell: if you don’t accept God’s healing invitation – His grace to let you walk on two legs – then you’re not the kind of man He wants, the kind of man He has intended you to be.
Original Sin eliminates the ability for man to rise above it all without God’s grace – thus leaving him “evil” and a “sinner” from the earliest of his days, in a universal sense, even though no formal act of immorality may be present. It does not matter how well a man tends his wounds, he cannot properly heal them to the perfection that God had created and intends for us to have. And that is all that matters. That’s what makes Jesus desperately needed.
Next to come, where Protestants add to this theology.
It seems to me that there’s a lot of confusion amongst people – Protestant and Catholic – about what the two are. That’s understandable – they are a bit muddled. This is because the theology Total Depravity builds on top of the theology of Original Sin.
The theology of Original Sin says simply one thing: Adam’s sin has removed mankind from the grace of God’s presence – from communion with God. The theology of Total Depravity says two things more: Adam’s sin has perverted mankind and destroyed mankind’s freedom. The theology of Original Sin can lead you towards a theology similar to Total Depravity, but it won’t lead you all the way there. At some point, you have to take the theology of Total Depravity on faith.
So, instead of doing all of this now, I intend to develop the differing theologies over a few posts. Hopefully this will help clarify some of the language I see folks using in talking about their theologies/faith as well as further educate myself on these particulars of faith and my abilities to communicate them.
YARWIBITE – Yet Another Reason Why I Believe In The Eucharist
This might need to become a category of its own.
Anyways.
I’m reading Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West. It is, as the name implies, an introduction to the theology developed by Pope John Paul II during his life-time and particularly his papacy that explains how the human body reveals spiritual realities – even those of God: “‘The body, in fact, and it alone,’ the Pope says, ‘is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden since time immerorial in God, and thus to be a sign of it.’” (p. 5)
I’ve only read the introduction, and I’m already nodding my head and finding myself deeply moved and awed. In particular, I wanted to share this piece, which is a thought I’ve often wanted to express but did not have the theological clarity to make.
In addition to imaging the Trinity, sexual love is also meant to image the union of God with humanity. Christ’s redeeming self-donation is a new outpouring of the Trinity’s love on all of creation. The Church receives this love and attempts to reciprocate it. God endowed our bodies as male and female with the sacramental ability to convey this exchange between Christ and the Church. As St. Paul says, quoting from Genesis, “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:31-32)
This passage from Ephesians 5 is a key text – perhaps the key text – for understanding the body and sexuality “theologically.” Christ is the one who left his Father in heaven. He also left the home of his mother on earth. Why? To give up his body for his Bride (the Church) so that we might become “one flesh” with him. Where do we unite bodily with Christ? Most profoundly, in the Eucharist. (p 9)
No one is saying the Eucharist is a sexual encounter, but that sexuality images this ultimate, complete giving of self that we see in Jesus – an image of the giving of self we find in the Trinity. We find in our sexuality and in the Eucharist and in the Trinity the purpose of relationship – that thing we’re born into and can never escape – being made plain: that God is and mankind was created for “an eternal exchange of love and communion.” (p 10)
Yes! and Amen!
Shortly after the election last year, the Sage posted a message on the politics of Jesus entitled A King Without a Quarter.
It’s worth reading for yourself, but to summarize it briefly so you can get through the rest of this post, it asserted that Jesus was social not political. Not particularly mind blowing, but at the time when people were using religion as a means of divinely selecting a political party, it was important. There were a few other discussions on AYOR that surrounded it – especially the war – that made this whole thing particularly gut wrenching for me, but eventually I put it out of mind and got on with my life.
That was until after New Years this year. I can’t remember what prompted it, but I started to think about this essay again. The agitation and aggrevation that it caused in me earlier started to surface violently. Wouldn’t Jesus go to war? Don’t we have a just and righteous cause? …and that essay came screaming back at me: no, He wouldn’t. People are too precious to be sacrificed for causes and politics – the dealings of men. People are to be ministered to as we can – to be led to righteousness through Jesus and, in that, salvation.
What’s worse is that in all of this I found myself as a cog in the great war machine. The things I have worked on have motivated and aided the current war effort. And at the time I had nothing but pride for my work – blinded by the fact that my work, right or wrong, was justifying the death of some other human, some soul in need of redemption.
Now, I’m no commander-in-chief. The burden of what has happened is not directly upon me. Nor is the salvation of others my burden to bear directly. But my consent and participation makes me party to any soul who may be in hell right now because of my passive agreement to take their life in this time. If salvation is a communal affair… then our failure in these matters are also a burden upon us.
How am I to respond to this? What does this mean to me?
I then thought of – as I often do – the story of the rich young man. The rich young man approached Jesus asking how to find eternal life. Jesus said to obey the commandments of the Law, and the young man answered that he has kept the commandments since his youth. Then Jesus told the youn man to sell everything and follow after him, at which point the rich young man walked away dismayed because he owned a great many things.
I am a rich young man. I do my best to keep the commandments, and I have a great many things – much more by the standards of the whole world. And before I ever say that these things are of my doing, I acknowledge God’s blessing and providence in all my opportunities. I have no home – it is His before it is mine – and I gladly give it up when I should be called.
But now I find myself in a world of cognitive dissonance. I have a job under Caesar, for Caesar – an occupation of politics and not service to all mankind. The nature of how I came by these jobs is nothing short of God’s providence I do believe. They each came unexpectedly, easily, and most providentially. …but, in a world of guns, bombs, and wars… I’m working in some manner against the Gospel – against the ministry of Jesus, against seeking and saving souls.
And now, after having finished school, when my family is looking for some breathing space… I’m considering moving once again into something new… to possibly throw our lives once more into some kind of stress… I think they deserve more than that: some time to me, some time to peace, some time of stability.
The hardest part of all this for me personally, I’ve dealt with now. The hardest part was that, as far as I was concerned up until the beginning of this year, my current job is my dream job: simulation – games. And now I’m thinking of giving it up. Every thing that I had done to prepare myself for the real-world was for this specific kind of job, and now I’m going another way. It hurts. It’s disappointing. Yet it’s frightfully emancipating. It’s dying to myself and, hopefully, rising once more in Christ.
I don’t know what’s to come. As I told Sage, I think “it”, whatever “it” may be, is coming. I see two possibilities before me at the moment. I probably should look into them instead of letting them slip past me, and that’s the rub, right? If “it” is coming, you would think it would hit you over the head like a two-by-four, but I’m not certain God works so obviously – He certainly hasn’t so far in things such as these, though I see His hand guiding me in the choices I’ve had and, in part, the decisions I have made. For every opportunity I’ve had to lead me here, I’ve had other options. I think my choices, however poor, God has worked toward the clarity I have right now. And the funniest thing is that it’s not a clarity of action but a clarity of purpose. …I think, in general, we’d all prefer the former over the latter – it certainly makes things easier.
Now I wait, standing on the brink of a coming time, to more fully join the revolution of revolutions – to more properly join in and live for my Lord in pursuit of each fellow man. I pray for patience, I pray for wisdom, I pray an open heart, and above all, I pray that not my will but Yours be done. Amen.
Yet more musings… generated from Mark Lickona
The question before me is: does love transcend truth? My gut tells me to say no.
In loving us, God asserted a Truth. Which came first? I don’t think the question is binary. They proceeded from the Father together. He spoke in Truth and Love and so here we are.
But, in the hearts of men, truth and love have been clouded such that we do not love each other in truth and we do not speak the truth in love. And so there grows a tendency to believe that truth is relative and love is shallow. But they are not. They are the causal foundations that flow from God. But without each other, they are poor images of the real thing and destined for ruin.
Now… there is perhaps one thing that undoes my argument, and that is Jesus: He who loved us greater than the truth – the truth of His innocence, the truth of His being, the truth of Justice. In the truth of His righteousness, He could have been the ruin of us all then and there – but He suffered without personal need for our sake, for our needs. Truth took the back seat for Love, and a new Truth was born out of that holy sacrificial Love by which we can now be redeemed.
It would do us well then to remember that it is by that Love we are redeemed, in that Love that we are to live and speak the new Truth, and for that Love that we are to live among all men. In all things, first we are to love.